


Perchance To Dream

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-04
Updated: 2006-03-04
Packaged: 2018-08-15 22:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8075869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Mestral returns to Carbon Creek. Spoilers, 2.02 "Carbon Creek." (02/24/2004)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

Carbon Creek had changed with the rest of the planet, and yet he could still identify remnants of the past there. The house where they had resided was still there, now used as a restaurant, Aunt Maggie's. He wondered if this was in reference to the Maggie he remembered, and it was a pleasing thought to believe that others shared her memory.

He could only approximate the location where he had won and first held human currency, because it was now a public park. This late at night, there was nobody around to look at the old man who pointed his finger at an imaginary pool table and whispered, "The number eight ball; that pocket." There was nobody to see the smile that slowly grew on his face as he remembered T'Mir in her backwards dress, nobody to wonder what he saw behind a boulder at the edge of town or why a particular spot on the road was of interest to him.

Moving on, he walked towards the mines. If he had been able to find an earlier transport, he would have had more time to recall what Carbon Creek had looked like the last time he had seen it. As it was, he had very little time left.

There was an old mine shaft, abandoned longer than most others. Winding his way in, he came to a particularly neat cut in the wall, where instead of a jagged edge the rock came to a precise, neat end. Eight more meters, and he reached his destination. In his memory, he heard groans as a single beam of light sliced through the darkness to reveal dust-covered faces.

He did not know what happened to his colleagues. Presumably, they were posted on other ships and lived the rest of their lives out as any Vulcan might. T'Mir, perhaps, might have been influenced in small ways, but he did not think that she would ever admit it. The last he had heard, from careful information-collecting, was that she was a second-foremother now to a young scientist called T'Pol. If she was even still alive, that was.

Even after official first contact, he had not dared reveal his secrets. He had observed humanity, and now it was time to leave them without being observed. Carefully, he had sent an extensive report to T'Pol, in part because he did not want his many decades of observations to go unrecorded, and in part because he did know how well history recorded the true first contact. He had instructed that the message not be opened until T'Mir had died, because he did not want to stain the last years of her life with a lie that was so old. Yet he thought that if this T'Pol was anything like her second foremother, she would understand on at leastsome basic level.

He could not decide whether he should settle himself in the traditional Vulcan position or the human version. Certainly, nobody else would come along to lay his body to rest, so it was up to him to leave his body in order. Many years later, perhaps, a rogue historian might happen upon the sight, but by then it would not matter at all. In the end, he positioned himself like the humans, because he had spent more of his life among them than his own people.

It had been a good life but a restless one. Now it was, to use the human term as he so often did, time to relax. A line from a human play came to his mind: "To sleep, perchance to dream..."

* * *

That same night, Henry Archer paced in front of an old oak door. At long last he heard a strong wail rise from within. Moments later, he looked down at his newborn son.


End file.
